Use of others skins.

[sl23]

[death.crafter]

As long as the skins are distributed under CC BY NCSA aka Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-commercial Share Alike, you can edit it and share it as long as you give the authors credit, that is attribution, and share it under CCBYNCSA license, that is share alike.

With what I had skimmed over the thread you mentioned, the OP was angry about you sharing an unfinished project, which they claimed to have started. So I wouldn't say anyone was at fault here. If you got the source from somewhere else then it can be another skin or someone from their group might have shared it before hand.

Same with other license like MIT or Unlicense.

But before you do so, just check with the authors if possible. Sometimes they share it under Creative Commons (because it is the default when you create a skin from Rainmeter) but don't intend their work to be shared by others.

But for the most part, we(I hope I am correct when I say we) don't care after we release it. You can do whatever the f you want to do. It's not like we are coding some super secret nuclear bomb defusing application in Rainmeter.

But people spend time and work on their skins. So just be sure they don't mind their work being shared.

Sharing is Caring you know.

[jsmorley]

Can I just ask what the score is regarding using others skins. After I upset dvo and obviously others here I expect, I wanted to know how things work with regards to editing others work.

Basically, is it ok to download skins or suites and edit them for personal use?

Sharing them is where I suspect things get shady, but I suppose it depends on the license stated in the skin?

I'd like to take the opportunity to apologise to anyone I offended before too. It was an honest mistake, which is why I'm trying to dpmd out info on this.

Thanks.

There is no hard and fast rule about this. Rainmeter itself is open-source, and while we might not love it, anyone can fork the code and change it as they like, as long as they follow the rules of open-source. About the only thing we would actively fight is any attempt to "sell" Rainmeter in any way.

As far as skins go, they are the property of their author. It is up to the author how little or much they want to restrict folks from creating derivatives based on their work. All you can really do is pay attention to the license that is included in the [Metadata] of the skin.

I'd wager that almost all skin authors that distribute their skins will use a license that allows derivatives to be created from it. Personally, I don't care a whit what anyone does with any skin code I release in a skin or post on these forums. I only release things for that very reason.

If someone wants to release a suite or skin with a restrictive license, that's up to them. I would certainly respect the license. Having said that, I also would never download or use such a skin. It's just not the "Rainmeter Way".

About the only thing I would be very hesitant to use without specific permission is any original "artwork" that is included with a skin. Weather icons for instance, can take a lot of work and creativity to make, and I would not use someone else's icons without being sure they were ok with it.

Let's face it, at the end of the day, there is NO WAY to lock down skin code in a way that keeps anyone who has it from using the ideas and even the actual code any way they want. We ALL stole ideas and code from other skins when we were first learning how Rainmeter works, it's how you learn Rainmeter. This is a plus. It helps foster the collaborative and friendly community that Rainmeter has.

No matter what though, it is good practice, good karma, and just common courtesy to always acknowledge and credit other's work.

[sl23]

[jsmorley]

Thank you for explaining in detail. It's good to know where's I stand. Is this info actually available in the manual or forum? Perhaps it should be?

I try not to use icons if I can help it anyway. But I understand what you mean and will try to act accordingly. It can be difficult to know where a skin actually originated though so how do you contact there creators? I suppose first stop is here, but some old skins are hard to track down.

https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/distributing-skins/#PublishingGuidelines

I think the best you can do with other's work is to 1) Pay attention to the License option in the [Metadata] section. 2) Give copious credit to the original author if known. 3) Respect any feedback you get from an original author, any request not to use something for instance.

[sl23]

[Yincognito]

I'll share my experience with this, if permitted, i.e. an actual example of how this went.

In my MYiniMeter suite I released both here and on DeviantArt, I was too lazy to make my own weather icons since there were so many available already and I felt I worked enough on the code to bother with the icons too. So, at first I thought about using the weather icons that VClouds had in his skins, since everybody knows his work looks awesome: I contacted him through a PM here on the forum and he was very generous to give me the permission to use them, of course while I emphasized from the start that proper credit (and links to his work) will appear in the appropriate place(s) in my skins.

However, when I began working to include them into my minimalist suite, I noticed that SilverAzide weather icons (which, as far as I understood, were also based on a earlier version by none other than jsmorley) were more suited for me - I believe it was about the resolution, aspect ratio or increased visibility when resized being similar to what I needed or something like that - so I sent a PM to VClouds to express my regret that I couldn't use his icons and one to SilverAzide to ask for permission and mentioning crediting him and his work in a similar manner. He was equally nice and forthcoming, just as VClouds was, so I settled for using his work.

The result, after publishing my suite:

Credits - Metadata.jpg

Credits - Settings.jpg

Similar credit given in the suite's "Changelog" from its section both here on the forum and on DeviantArt as well.

EDIT: Which reminds me I forgot to update SilverAzide's link from DeviantArt to GitHub in my Settings skin (fortunately it's updated in the other places). See? That's how things add up to be done in a new version, LOL - little by little.

[jsmorley]

I confess that I have entirely lost track of where the "realistic" weather icons I use came from originally. I certainly didn't create them from scratch, but I have used them for so long I no longer remember if I "tweaked" icons from VClouds, or HipHopium, or someone else. I sorta regret this, as I'd like to give proper credit for them.

I don't think they are from VClouds, but if anyone recognizes them and knows the original author, I'd love to know.

TWCIcons.zip

[SilverAzide]

I confess that I have entirely lost track of where the "realistic" weather icons I use came from originally. I certainly didn't create them from scratch, but I have used them for so long I no longer remember if I "tweaked" icons from VClouds, or HipHopium, or someone else. I sorta regret this, as I'd like to give proper credit for them.

I don't think they are from VClouds, but if anyone recognizes them and knows the original author, I'd love to know.

I swiped my Gadgets weather icons from you a long time ago, back in 2015 or 2016 maybe. They are definitely not sourced from VClouds. There was a discussion back then about where these originated from, but even then no one could recall. I did multiple reverse image searches but I never could find a definitive source.

If I recall correctly, I think the original set of icons were more aligned with Yahoo's conditions, and I re-arranged them and made some tweaks for TWC. The set you posted includes modifications I made to distinguish certain TWC conditions (like drizzle vs. shower, snow shower vs. flurries, different tintings of the icon for fog/haze/dust/smoke, the "hot" icon with the red thermometer, etc., etc.). I think you made additional refinements to align with actual TWC conditions (for example, the first 4 which were all exactly the same originally).

Here is my most recent set. I've tweaked the first few, tweaked the icon for "heavy rain", etc.

[jsmorley]

I think this is all based on a set called "droplets", but I can't seem to track down the author or a definitive site.

1.jpg

There are lots of sites that point to these in various "collections", but they all seem to point to a site that no longer exists...

http://weathericonsets.com/